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How to optimize Windows 8

In this tutorial, I will show you a variety of ways to optimize the performance of your Windows 8 computer by removing old programs, keeping Windows up-to-date, removing temporary files, and performing other various tweaks to improve your Windows experience.

Before we get started, it is recommended to please enter your System Details. It helps us in answering your questions.

It is highly recommended to create a System Restore point before making any changes to your system just in case something goes wrong. You can do this by following the instructions in this link, Configure System Restore in Windows.

Now that your System Details have been entered in your profile and you have created a System Restore point, follow the steps to optimize your computer below:

1. Click Start< Control Panel< Uninstall a Program and uninstall any programs that you do not use.

If you are not sure on what programs can be removed safely, there are three tools that you can use to help you decide what needs to go. Personally, any programs that are not system drivers and that come pre-installed on any new computer probably are not necessary for your computer to work properly. These useless programs known as bloatware, a lot of the time will be running in the background so if you do not need these programs, they can be removed using the tools below:

2. In Control Panel under Programs and Features click the link that says Turn Windows Features On or Off and uncheck all the checkboxes except for .NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET 2.0 and 3.0), .NET Framework 4.5 Advanced Services, Internet Explorer 11, Media Features, Windows PowerShell 2.0, XPS Services and XPS Viewer. Click Ok when you are done and then click on the Restart Now button when prompted. (If you use a Windows Feature that is listed then do not uncheck its checkbox)

Your installed Windows 8 Features should look like the picture below.

3. Download and run ATF Cleaner. Save the program to your desktop. After the download completes, right click on the ATF Cleaner program and select Run as administrator. When it opens select all the checkboxes in the program then hit the Empty Selected button.

4. Run Disk Cleanup. Click Start< All Programs< Administrative Tools< Right click Disk Cleanup and select Run as administrator. When it is done calculating how much free space you can save make sure you check all the checkboxes on the Disk Cleanup tab. Now click the More Options tab and under System Restore click the Cleanup button. When it asks you if you want to delete all but the most recent restore point click Yes. Now click Ok on the Disk Cleanup window to allow Disk Cleanup to remove unnecessary files from the computer.

5. Download and run the portable version of CCleaner. Save the zipped folder to your desktop. After you download the zipped folder on your desktop, right click the zipped folder and click Extract All. After the folder has been extracted open the regular folder. Run the CCleaner.exe program by right clicking on it and selecting Run as administrator. When you open the program, on the Windows tab select the following boxes:

Once those checkboxes have been selected, click on the Applications tab and deselect all the checkboxes on that tab. Then click on the Analyze button. After CCleaner has finished analyzing how much hard drive space you can free up, click on the Run Cleaner button. CCleaner will tell you that this process will permanently delete files from your system, and are you sure you want to proceed? Click on Ok to have CCleaner remove all the junk files that it found. CCleaner will then remove those files and when it is done, it will tell you that the cleaning has finished. You can now close the CCleaner program.

(Understand, that by deleting Internet cookies using either CCleaner or ATF Cleaner, if you had set your Internet browser to save your login information to your online e-mail account as an example, then you will need to re-enter that information again in order to log into that account. Internet cookies are small pieces of information in the form of small text files that are downloaded to your computer when you visit websites. These text files save your login information, so by deleting your Internet cookies, your usernames and passwords for your online accounts will need to be typed in again. If you do not want to re-input this information again then do not remove your Internet cookies using CCleaner or ATF Cleaner).

A Windows Service is a special type of application that operates in the background. Services can have special privileges that regular applications do not. For instance, on a limited user account a service could access certain parts of the Windows Registry that a regular application could not access. Most Windows Services do not have a user interface and many of them are loaded when Windows starts.

I have been using Black Vipers website as a partial guide as to whether or not a service is needed for many years now and have never had any problems. The key here is you should only mess with Windows Services if you are willing to spend time researching about what each service does. Every computer user uses their computer differently so it is not really possible to recommend a general list of services that people can disable since some users will use a Windows Service that someone else will never use. However, I find that if you look at the information about a particular Windows Service from many different sources about what its purpose is, then you will have a greater understanding of whether or not you should disable the service.

I use Black Vipers guide along with many other sources found online about what each serviceâ€™s purpose is so I can more accurately determine if I need that service running on my machine. My mentality is that if you have a process that is taking up your computers resources and you have no use for it to be running in the first place then why keep that process running? Sure on computers with todayâ€™s hardware, the difference in performance with disabling Windows Services may be marginal at best and may trim a few seconds off of your startup time but every little bit helps in the long run. Not only that, but disabling certain Windows Services can even improve the security of the system. The lower the amount of processes your system has running, the more resources your computer has available for when you want to play a game or perform intensive multitasking with programs that you do use. I have disabled dozens of Windows Services on many computers and I have noticed a slight increase in performance.

There is some truth that if you disable a Windows Service, you may break a feature of Windows that you use and could even render your computer unbootable. While this statement is correct, I have seen many users particularly novice ones who disable Windows Services without knowing the full impact of what they actually control. For example, a user may disable the Print Spooler Service and then wonder why their printer does not work anymore. This shows that you need to be absolutely sure that the service that you are disabling will not disable some feature of Windows that you utilize. If you follow this approach, then you will have a lower chance of messing up your system.

Pre-work before modifying Windows Services

Before you make any changes to the Windows Services list, you should create a System Restore point just in case you need to restore your computer before you made any service changes. To create a restore point, follow the instructions in this link, Configure System Restore in Windows.

After the restore point has been created, you can now open the services window by clicking Start< Run and typing services.msc and hitting enter. Then, make sure you READ all of the information on Black Vipers service configuration webpage before making any service startup changes as the information that is listed there is EXTREMELY important.

Letâ€™s now describe what each of the service categories on Black Vipers website actually mean and how you can interpret them. The services are sorted by different columns on the website. The columns that we will focus on are the name of each service, and the configuration mode that you want to follow. The service name allows you to click on each service to learn more about what each service does and what the default startup type is.

The service startup configurations are organized into three distinct categories; Safe, Tweaked, and Bare-bones:

Safe - If you are a basic computer user or you are not very comfortable with disabling Windows Services then you should follow the Safe configuration. The Safe configuration should be sufficient for most home users to follow with very little risk involved. The Safe configuration will have you disable services required for using smart cards and media sharing across large networks so for home computers that do not perform these functions, this configuration will work well for your needs.

Tweaked - If you are an intermediate or advanced computer user then you can follow the Tweaked configuration for more control over what features you have enabled. The Tweaked configuration will disable File and Print sharing, Network Discovery and other corporate network functions that many home computers will not use so if you do not share any files or printers between computers on your network, then the Tweaked configuration will be adequate for your needs.

Bare-bones - The last service configuration is the Bare-bones category. This category is NOT recommended to follow completely as security features like Windows Update, Security Center, Windows Firewall and wireless Internet functionality will stop working with this configuration. You should be very cautious when disabling any services that use the Bare-bones configuration.

Now this isnâ€™t to say that you need to follow each category exactly as shown on the website. You can disable certain services from all three categories listed as long as you know that you will not be using that particular service. As another option, you can look through each service individually by name, which will give you a greater understanding of what each service is used for. Then you can use the service configuration categories on Black Vipers website as a starting point to figure out how important each service is to the running of your system. The services listed under the Safe category are going to be safer to disable when compared to the services listed under the Tweaked or Bare-bones categories. Regardless of the service category that you choose or whatever services you decide to disable, make sure you perform research on the service in question before disabling it. I cannot stress this enough. Just remember to exercise some good common sense when messing with Windows Services. If you have a question about what a particular service does and you are unsure about its functionality, then feel free to ask about it on the PCHF forum.

9. Click Start< Right click Computer and click Properties. In the System Properties window on the left side, click the Advanced system settings button. Then on the Advanced tab< Under where it says Performance hit the settings button. In the Performance Options window click the Advanced tab and under Virtual Memory click the Change button. In the Virtual Memory window make sure your hard drive is selected and select the option that says System Managed Size and click the Set button. Now click Ok on the Virtual Memory window to close it. Now in the Performance Options window click the Data Execution Prevention tab and select the option that says Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select. After that is done click Ok on the Performance Options window to save the changes. Then in the System Properties window on the Advanced Tab under Startup and Recovery click on the Settings button. Under the System startup section uncheck both checkboxes that say Time to display list of operating systems and Time to display recovery options when needed. When done, click on Ok on all the windows to close them out and then reboot the computer.

10. Click Start< Control Panel< System and Security< Power Options. Once the Power Options open select the High performance power plan.

11. To improve your Windows shutdown time, decrease the delay time when opening up menus, and close non responsive programs, I have provided descriptions for what these various settings do and a registry script that will make these changes automatically.

Here are the descriptions about what each of these settings do in the below registry script.

AutoEndTasks - Determines whether user processes end automatically when the user either logs off or shuts down Windows.

HungAppTimeout - Specifies how long the system waits for user processes to end after the user clicks the End Task command button in Task Manager. If this threshold is exceeded, the End Task dialog box appears, stating that the process did not respond.

MenuShowDelay - Determines the interval from the time the cursor is pointed at a menu until the menu items are displayed.

WaitToKillAppTimeout - Determines how long the system waits for user processes to end after the user attempts to log off or to shut down Windows. When the time specified in this entry expires, the End Task dialog box appears, stating that the process did not respond. If the value of AutoEndTasks is 1, the system ends the process automatically.

LowLevelHooksTimeout - Determines how long the system waits before the system ends Windows services automatically when they are not responding.

ForegroundLockTimeout - Specifies the time, following user input, during which the system keeps applications from moving into the foreground.

MouseHoverTime - Determines how long the system waits for the mouse pointer to stay hovered on an item before tooltip popups display.

Startupdelayinmsec - Windows 8 delays the startup time for all desktop apps. Shortcuts located in your Start Menu's Startup folder as well as the items which run from various Registry locations will be launched after a delay of a few seconds by default. However, you can reduce this startup delay for desktop apps. Previous versions of Windows did not have this delay for startup programs. Determines how long to delay startup items when you boot up the computer.

WaitToKillServiceTimeout - Determines how long the system waits for services to stop after notifying the service that the system is shutting down. This entry is used only when the user issues a shut-down command by clicking Shut Down from the Shut Down Windows dialog box. When the value of this entry expires, the system notifies the user that the service has not stopped. The user can either force the service task to stop or continue to wait. If the user waits, this value specifies the interval between repeated user notices that the service has not stopped. If all services stop before this value expires, the system shuts down; it does not wait for this value to expire.

NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation - By default, NTFS creates an 8.3 filename every time it creates a long filename, which adds a bit of time to the file creation process. Disabling this feature can increase the performance on heavily used NTFS partitions that have a large amount of files with long filenames.

NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate - By default, each file and folder on an NTFS volume has an attribute called Last Access Time, which records the last time the file or folder was opened, read, or changed. This means even when you read a file on an NTFS volume, a write action occurs on that volume too. Normally this is not a problem, but if you have an application that tends to frequently access files for short periods of time, this feature of NTFS can really slow performance.

VerboseStatus - Windows has the option to display certain messages during startup and shutdown. These highly detailed status messages are referred to as Verbose Status Messages and tell us the processes or steps that the Windows operating system is taking during startup, shutdown, logon, and logoff operations. These verbose messages tell you what Windows is doing in the background while carrying out these operations.

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To run the registry script, click Start< All Programs< Accessories< Notepad. Once Notepad opens, copy and paste the text in bold red below:

13. Run Check Disk on the hard drive to repair any errors in the file system. To do this click Start< type Command Prompt, right click on the Command Prompt shortcut in the search results and click Run as administrator. After the Command Prompt window opens type chkdsk C: /r and hit enter.

Check Disk /r locates bad sectors and recovers readable information. The disk must be locked. Includes the functionality of the /f switch, with the additional analysis of physical disk errors.

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You will then receive the following message: Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in the use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N) Type Y to confirm the change and hit enter. When you hit Y and hit enter you will receive the following message: This volume will be checked the next time the system restarts. After you receive that message you can close the Command Prompt window and restart your computer to allow Check Disk to run.

15. Please download Autoruns. After you download the zipped folder on your desktop, right click the zipped folder and click Extract All. After the folder has been extracted open the regular folder. Run the autoruns.exe program by right clicking on it and selecting Run as administrator. When you open the program click the Logon Tab and remove any items that you do not need running on startup. Then post a screenshot of all the startup entries on the Logon Tab in your next reply. Your screenshot should look like the following image below.

16. Download and run TCP Optimizer. Save the program to your desktop and then run the program by right clicking on it and selecting Run as administrator. When the program opens, on the General Settings tab under Network Adapter selection click the option that says Modify all Network Adapters. Then at the bottom of the window where it says Choose settings, select the Optimal setting and click on Apply Changes. Click on Ok to confirm the changes and when prompted, reboot the computer for the changes to take effect.

Hard drives nowadays are more than just platters of magnetic media. There's also RAM on the hard drive circuit board, and this RAM is used by the hard drive firmware as yet another buffer. If the drive is told, "Write this data to the hard drive at this location," the drive copies the data into its private RAM buffer and immediately returns a successful completion code to the operating system. The drive then goes about seeking the head, looking for the sector, and physically writing out the data.

When your program issues a write command to the file system (assuming that file system buffering is enabled), the write goes into the operating system disk cache, and periodically, the data from the operating system disk cache is flushed to the hard drive. The hard drive lies to the operating system and says "Yeah, I wrote it," even though it hasn't really done it yet. The data the operating system requested to be written is just sitting in a RAM buffer on the hard drive, that in turn gets flushed out to the physical medium by the hard drive firmware.

If you call one of the Flush functions, Windows flushes out its disk cache buffers to the hard drive, as you would expect. But as we saw above, this only pushes the data into the RAM buffer on the hard drive. Windows understands this and follows up with another command to the hard drive, "Hey, I know you're one of those sneaky hard drives with an internal RAM buffer. Yes, I'm talking to you; don't act all innocent like. So do me a favor, and flush out your internal RAM buffers too, and let me know when that's done." This extra "I know what you did last summer" step ensures that the data really is on physical storage, and the Flush call waits until the "Okay, I finished flushing my internal RAM buffer" signal from the hard drive before returning control to your program.

This extra "flush out your internal RAM buffer too" command is the right thing to do, but it can safely be skipped under very special circumstances: Consider a hard drive with a power supply separate from the computer which can keep the drive running long enough to flush out its internal RAM, even in the event of a sudden total loss of external power. For example, it might be an external drive with a separate power supply that is hooked up to a UPS. If you have this very special type of set-up, then Windows doesn't need to issue the "please flush out your internal RAM buffers too" command, because you have a guarantee that the data will make it to the disk no matter what happens in the future. Even if a transformer box explodes, cutting off all power to your building, that hard drive has enough residual power to get the data from the internal RAM buffer onto the physical medium.

This feature does nothing except re-introduce an old windows bug. Thatâ€™s right! Thereâ€™s no performance increase available through this checkbox. It simply reintroduces an old bug that some old software relies on, so that said old software can regain the performance it lost when the bug was fixed. If youâ€™re just an everyday average user trying to tweak your computer for the best performance, this checkbox isnâ€™t going to help you. However, if the integrity of your disks is not important and you have a dedicated hard drive you don't care about losing if the power goes out then you can turn on the Enable advanced performance/Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device check box.

Let us know how the computer is running after performing the above steps.

Some guidelines to keep in mind:

Following these steps will help improve your computers performance to a certain degree but will NOT fix a hardware limitation or remove malware infections present on the machine.

In the case of your computer experiencing malware symptoms or you want to make sure your computer is completely clean of malware, it is advisable to please read this and post the requested logs in the Malware and Virus Removal Forum.

If your computer is still slow because of a hardware limitation such as a slow processor (CPU) or a low amount of memory (RAM) then we ask that you communicate clearly on why your machine is still slow so that our technicians can provide suggestions on upgrading the hardware for your computer.

If you were directed to this tutorial by a hyperlink on PCHF and you want us to help speed up your computer, then we ask that you post the contents of the following information in your next reply:
Autoruns Logon Tab Screenshot
Number of processes running in the Windows Task Manager

In case you were wondering, I did not provide any suggestions for what security programs you should install and run as that question is based on personal preferences and what some people use for security software may not work for others. If you have a question about what security software you should run on your system then search the forum for a similar topic or create a new thread in the appropriate section if you need your specific question answered.

Here is some information that with lack of regular maintenance, why do Windows computers slow down over time?

Startup Programs: Examine a Windows system that is slow and you are likely to find many additional startup programs have been installed, lengthening the boot process, cluttering the system tray with useless icons, and consuming CPU, memory, and other system resources in the background. Worse yet, some computers may come with a huge amount of useless startup programs out of the box thanks to manufacturer-installed bloatware.

Windows Explorer Plug-ins, Services, and More: Applications that add shortcuts to Windows Explorerâ€™s context menu can make right-clicking on files take much longer if theyâ€™re badly programmed. Other programs may install themselves as a system service or as a scheduled task so theyâ€™re running in the background even though you cannot see them. Even if they are not in the system tray, useless programs can slow down your PC.

Bloated Security Suites: Security suites like Norton and McAfee can be very bloated with extra features that you may not use, while consuming a lot of system resources to perform all their functions. In most cases you do not really need a full security suite, just a couple of good free security applications.

PC Cleaning Tools: Paid PC cleaning tools are generally scams. Paradoxically, they can make your computer even slower if they add themselves as a startup program and run in the background. The scammiest PC cleaning programs may even install additional spyware and other junk on your machine.

Temporary Files and Other Junk: Poorly written applications may clutter your system with useless temporary files and fill your registry with useless entries. The worst applications may not clean up properly after themselves, which will leave parts of their applications on your system even after you have uninstalled them. While an accumulation of Temporary Files will not slow down your computer, these files will take up hard drive space and can cause issues with downloading files or running programs.

Internet Browser Add-ons and Toolbars: Legitimate browser extensions can slow down your Internet browser enough, but junk add-ons like the terrible Ask.com toolbar can slow things down even more. Some toolbars and add-ons can show you obnoxious ads in your search results which can make your Internet browser very frustrating to use.

Dust and Dirt Accumulation: Dust and dirt building up in computers can be a problem especially if that material inhibits air flow by blocking fan vents or insulating parts which can cause components to overheat. Regardless if you are using a laptop or a desktop computer it is recommended to clean your computer using a can of compressed air or an electric duster every 3 to 6 months. You should NOT use a vacuum cleaner though, How To Thoroughly Clean Your Dirty Desktop Computer.

Overall, the main cause of a Windows system slowing down over time is installing junk software.

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The following articles are very informative and will help you stay safe on the Internet:

One last note: If you require expert and professional help for an issue that you can not fix yourself then you should contact a local computer technician to repair and optimize your computer for you as there is only so much our technicians on the PCHF forum can do to fix your computer problems.